Using a foam roller before and after exercise improves athletic performance while preventing injury and fatigue. Foam rollers are also an excellent way to manage pain and soreness in different muscle groups. Keep going to see how to use a foam roller for muscle relief.
How Using A Foam Roller Helps With Muscle Relief
Applying a healthy amount of pressure on sore and aching muscles is therapeutic in multiple ways. For starters, the pressure from a massage improves flexibility and blood flow in muscles. This goes a long way to reduce soreness, stiffness, and fatigue after exercise.
Think of a foam roller as a tool to massage, stretch, and relax your muscles. The foam roller exercises you perform will lead to healthier, more resilient muscles.
Here’s our list of foam roller exercises that help to manage soreness after working out:
1) Foam Roller Exercise For Your Calves
Using a foam roller on your calves is one way to reduce soreness after a good calf workout. Also, you should only apply gentle or moderate pressure on your calves to avoid harming the nerves in the lower legs.
To perform the exercise:
- Start the exercise by sitting on the floor with the foam roller directly under your calves. Now, use your arms to brace yourself and lift your body off the floor. Your feet are the only parts of your body that should be in contact with the floor, and your calves should rest on the roller.
- Next, use your arms and upper body to move your calves over the foam roller. The resulting movement should have your calves rolling across the roller. Keep going for about 30 seconds before taking a 30-second break. Repeat the exercise two more times.
Here are a few tips to help you make the most out of your calf exercises:
- You can exercise one calf at a time by bending one leg at the knee and using it to support your body weight and guide your movement.
- Target your calves’ outer and inner muscles by turning the leg under the foam roller. This means that you should:
- Point the foot outward to target the outer section of the calf.
- Turn the foot inward to target the inner section of the calf.
- Avoid moving the foam roller over the side of the knee as you exercise the side of the calf.
2) Foam Roller Exercise For Your Hamstrings
The hamstrings are a group of long, sturdy muscles that run along the back of your leg. These muscles start at your hips and extend to just below the back of your knees.
Here’s how you use a foam roller to ease muscle tension in your hamstrings:
- Sit on the floor with your legs stretched before you and place a foam roller under your thighs. For this particular exercise, we’re going to target one hamstring at a time, so bend the left leg at the knee.
- At this point, the foam roller should be under the right leg.
- Use your arms and left leg to lift your body off the ground.
- The left leg should help you control your movement as you roll your thigh across the foam roller.
- Keep going for 30 seconds before taking a 30-second break.
- Do two more repetitions of the exercise before switching the foam roller to the left leg.
Use your right leg as a brace as you repeat the steps above to execute the same exercise with your left leg. You can increase the reach of the foam roller by turning your leg outward. This means you should point your toes away from the body before doing an additional 30-second stretch on the roller.
3) Foam Roller Exercise For Your Quad Muscles
Your quadriceps sit at the front of your thighs and run from your hips to your knees. Here’s how to use a foam roller on this muscle group:
- Get on your knees and place the foam roller in front of you.
- Lower yourself into a low plank position so that your thighs rest on the foam roller.
- Use your forearms to move your body forward and backward. This movement will cause your thighs to roll over the foam roller.
- The foam roller should move from the upper thigh to just above the knee.
- Keep doing the movement for 30 seconds before taking a 30-second break.
Repeat the steps above two or three times before moving on to a different exercise.
4) Foam Roller Exercise For The Glutes
Your glutes are a group of muscles that make up your butt. They help to stabilize your pelvis and upper body.
Here are some foam roller exercises that will provide relief to your sore buns:
- Start by sitting on the foam roller and planting both feet on the floor. Your arms should be bracing your body, so stretch them behind you and lean into them.
- Roll backward to position the foam roller right under your butt, and use this as your starting position for the exercise.
- Now, roll forward to move the foam roller over the length of the glutes. Repeat this back-and-forth movement for 30 seconds before taking a 30-second break. Aim for two or three sets of this foam roller exercise to relax your glutes.
You can perform a variation of the exercise to increase the reach of the foam roller. To do this, cross your left leg over the right one. Now, angle your body to the right before moving the roller along the length of the right glutes. Repeat the exercise on your other side.
5) Foam Roller Exercise For Your Hip Flexors
Target your hip flexors with this exercise:
- You start this exercise in a forearm plank position, with the left hip resting on a short foam roller. Bend the right leg away from the body so your knee points outward.
- Use your arms and right leg to move your body forward and backward. This movement will move the front of your hip over the foam roller.
- Perform this exercise for 20 to 30 seconds before taking a 30-second break. Perform two more 30-second sets before switching the foam roller to your right hip.
A variation of this exercise requires you to apply the foam roller to one side of your hips. You would need to assume a side plank position as you move the roller along the length of each hip.
6) Foam Roller Exercise For Your Upper Back
Here’s an exercise that will provide relief to sore back muscles:
- Start this exercise by lying on the floor with the foam roller right below your shoulder blades. The roller should be long enough to accommodate the width of your back.
- Now, support your head by linking your hands behind your upper neck. At the same time, angle the elbows toward each other to stretch out the shoulder muscles.
- Next, bend both legs at the knees by planting your feet firmly on the ground. The legs will brace your body as you roll the upper back across the foam roller.
- Lift your butt off the ground and begin moving your upper back across the roller. Let the foam roller move from the middle of the back to the shoulders.
Perform Foam Roller Exercises After Workouts
Foam roller exercises help to ease muscle aches and pains. Add these exercises to your cooldowns after working out to keep delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) to a minimum as you work toward your fitness goals.
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